LA City Attorney Says She Made A ‘Mistake’ Handling Skid Row Housing Trust Takeover

L.A. city leaders are moving forward with a push to remove the man they put in charge of housing for 1,500 vulnerable people who used to be unhoused, after the city attorney cited a series of problems – including people being wrongfully told they’re getting evicted – that led to a breakdown in trust.

The move won unanimous support from the full city council on Tuesday, following a 15-minute closed-door discussion.

At the budget committee meeting the previous day, City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto rattled off a series of what she cast as violations of trust by Mark Adams, whom she had previously asked a judge to appoint to take control of the financially imploding Skid Row Housing Trust properties in early April.

Putting Adams in charge was a mistake, she said. It was a rare public admission of a judgment error by an elected official.

“It's very difficult to come and admit a mistake. But I do think that part of our jobs is that if there's a mistake, to correct it,” Feldstein Soto said.

“I'm here to do that today to the best of my ability.”

The council is now fully backing her recommendation to have the city offer a $10 million low-interest loan to fix the properties if the judge replaces Adams with another receiver named Kevin Singer.

Adams, in turn, is asking the judge to keep him in charge and order the city to still loan the $10 million, saying the receivership is in a dire situation because of a lack of cash.

In a Monday court filing, he said the city has had the ability to loan that money all along and “could have made it available to [Adams] but chose not to.”

The budget committee voted unanimously 3-0 Monday to support Feldstein Soto's recommendation. Two council members were absent.

Adams defends his progress

In a statement on Monday, a spokesperson for Adams’ company defended his progress with the properties that struggled for years under “bureaucratic neglect.”

“It is a challenging project beyond the scope of what was expected,” said the statement, adding that the judge recently expressed support for him.

“Mr. Adams is still by far the most qualified person to make the [Skid Row Housing Trust] a safe, sustainable, and thriving community once all the hard work is completed after years of neglect by the prior administration,” the statement adds.

Adams’ most egregious violation, the city attorney said at Monday's committee meeting, were eviction notices that were wrongfully sent to 451 tenants by the property management company he hired.

Feldstein Soto took direct aim at Adam’s description of the eviction notices as a mistake or “flub.”

“While it has been explained as an oversight and a mistake, that kind of error visited upon people who are incredibly vulnerable — who have no place to turn, and who show up at their door and are faced with a three-day notice to quit or pay rent — is completely unacceptable,” Feldstein Soto told council members at Monday’s meeting. “Especially from a court officer who promised that no one would be evicted for the nonpayment of rent.”

Adams told LAist earlier this month that the eviction notices were rescinded, and that he warned his subcontractor not to do it again or he’d fire them.

The city attorney also said the plan with Adams was to get 500 apartments repaired within three to six months, so they can start receiving government rent subsidies again and make the buildings financially sustainable. She said the pace of repairs was “not acceptable” and fewer than 10% have been fixed since Adams was put in charge in early April.

Councilmembers speak out

During the meeting, Councilmember Bob Blumenfield said the city has to intervene to protect the safety of the 1,500 people who live in the trust’s buildings.

“It's a humanitarian crisis that we know at the end of the day falls on our lap as a city — even though the crisis is not our doing,” he said. “But we need to be aware of it and we need to step up.”

“I don't see how we cannot do this,” added Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky.

“We don't have a lot of options.”

It’s ultimately up to a judge to decide whether to replace Adams. But city officials are trying to incentivize that by making the loan dependent on putting Singer in charge.